Greenling is the local and organic food delivery service I use in Austin, Texas. No company has ever impressed me more with their customer support.

They make every step easy: I can manage my orders online through their killer site, deliveries come right to my door, and everything is guaranteed. (My teammate Merissa uses Greenling too, and once live-chatted with a rep after receiving some apples that had gone soft—they apologized, refunded the charge on the spot and gave her 10 percent off her next order.) When I first became a customer, they checked in with me to make sure everything was going well. My delivery guy is always cheerful and asks whether there’s anything else they can do.

Greenling claims “We believe good relationships are the foundation for every successful service and we build them to last.” And they mean it! I’m housesitting for my friend Andy, and agreed to show his place to a couple potential tenants, Kristen and Jeff. They were really nice, and noticed my Greenling box in the kitchen—turned out Jeff works for Greenling, and we launched into a conversation about persimmons. A couple days later, I got this email:

Hi Emily!

Thanks for taking the time to show Kristen and I Andy’s home the other day! We really appreciate it and are excited about living there!

Since you are such an awesome Greenling customer I wanted to pass along a coupon for you to use as well. The next time you check out use this coupon and you will get 25% off of your next order from us :)

Hope those persimmons were awesome!

Take care, 

Jeff Waltrip, Smoothie Operator

How cool is that? He got my email address from Andy so he could send me a coupon—and it was a killer email, at that. Smoothie Operator for the win!

What’s the last support experience that rocked your world?

We’re looking for another support team member! Specifically, we’re seeking a native English speaker in the GMT zone or thereabouts, so our poor Jim doesn’t have to work alone in the UK while the rest of us are snoring soundly!

You’ll be responsible for providing tremendous customer service via email for Basecamp, Basecamp Classic, Highrise, Backpack, and Campfire. You’ll also help us answer questions via Twitter, create and edit help documentation, and maybe run some online classes.

You’ll be expected to answer about 75 emails per day once you’re fully up to speed (2-3 months or thereabouts). This is a significant volume, so be sure that you’re ready and able to deal with that kind of daily load – you’ll get all the love and help you need along the way!

We’re looking for some great writers who love helping our customers, so you should enjoy making complicated situations simple and painless and have a passion for our products.

If you want to join me, Ann, Chase, Jim, Joan, Kristin, Merissa, and Michael in making our customers happy, please apply!

How to apply

Please submit a cover letter explaining:

• Why you want to work in customer support.
• Why you want to work at 37signals and not somewhere else.
• A description of a great customer service/support experience you had recently, and what made it great.

Also, pick three of the questions from customers below and answer them like you would if you worked here:

• Does the new Basecamp offer time tracking?
• Is the new Basecamp offered in any other language besides English?
• I’m interested in your products, but not sure which one is right for me. What’s the difference between Highrise and Basecamp?
• I’ve been a Basecamp Classic user for years and see you have a new version. What’s the difference between the versions, and why should I switch?
• Is there a reporting function in the new Basecamp?

We offer heaps of lovely benefits, plus a progressive work environment. Starting salary is $45k USD, depending on experience.

Email everything to [email protected]. Include “Customer Support” in the subject line. If you’re attaching a resume, please send it as a PDF. Note: We look favorably on people who get creative with their applications.

We look forward to hearing from you!

Officially, 37signals customer support is only available during standard U.S. business hours — 8 a.m.-5 p.m. CST (14:00-23:00 GMT). In reality, we’re usually open a little longer than that, because some of us are morning people (Merissa!) and some of us are night owls (Joan!). We’ll sometimes pop in on weekends too, especially when it’s busy. Still, that only amounts to about 60 hours of availability in a 168-hour week.

That’s been a bummer for folks in other parts of the world — nearly a fifth of our customers are in Europe, and at least 5 percent work from Asia and Australia. While it’s often easy to get back to our American customers in less than an hour, Europeans could be waiting more than six hours for a response, and our friends down under could wait a whole business day. When you’re unable to log in to your account, or somebody removed your admin permissions, or you can’t find that file you know you uploaded yesterday, well … that sucks!

It sucked even worse after we launched the new Basecamp and suddenly had hundreds more cases per day with the same tiny team of seven. Cases were piling up to 400, 500, 600 deep. It got so bad that a few times, we straight-up shut down intake, just so we could catch a breath. Not cool.

In June, it was taking us about 110 minutes to reply to emails during business hours, 279 minutes on average overall. Only 41% of customers were getting a reply within an hour when we were on the clock, and a dismal 29% received a response within an hour overall.

Ouch.

We had already decided to bring on some folks across the pond to better serve our customers in different time zones. We added the lovely and talented Monika (Netherlands) and Jim (UK) to the team (more on them soon!), and I’ve been working from Europe this summer as well — so lately, our day has been starting around 3 a.m. CST.

We’ve been experimenting with later shifts, too — Kristin, Ann, and Joan have been taking turns coming in around 11 a.m.-noon and leaving around 8-9 p.m. CST.

What this means is that, at least during the Monday-Friday workweek, we’ve gone from 8-12 hours of availability to about 18. So far, that’s making a world of difference.

Yesterday at 11 a.m., for example, the median time to a first reply during business hours was 24 minutes and 73% of cases were being answered within an hour. (You can always see how quickly we’re getting to things on our “Happiness Report” page.)

In the three and a half weeks before we started European hours and late shifts, our median weekday response time was six hours. Since we spread the hours out (in addition to some awesome deploys and feature improvements, too!), median weekday response time has fallen dramatically, to around 55 minutes. We’ve been reaching “Inbox Zero” at the end of the day — something that hasn’t really happened since we launched Basecamp on March 6. No more 100+ case backlogs to work through and prioritize first thing in the morning, because we’re constantly working through the queue.

Is this perfect? Heck no. We know that commerce is 24-7, and 55 minutes can feel like an eternity when stuff isn’t working. We know people rely on our apps to do their jobs, and when something goes wrong, it can create big problems. We take that super-seriously. We’d like to move toward around-the-clock support, where everyone is getting a reply within an hour. Ideally, no one would wait more than a few minutes to hear back from us.

That’s the direction we’re heading in — this is just a step toward it. But it’s been a major step, and we’ll all breathing a little easier and sleeping a little more soundly!

Thanks to Noah for his help with the numbers here.

One of the super-cool benefits of working at 37signals is a membership in a CSA (Community Supported Agriculture). We get fresh fruits and veggies at the farmer’s market or delivered to our doors, which encourages us and our families to cook and eat healthier — and the brain food helps us stay at the top of our mental game too!

It also feels great to support local farmers. We’re spread out all over the place, so the contents of our CSA boxes reflect what’s local and in season where we live.

Clockwise from top left: A recent delivery from Greenling in Austin, Texas; Javan’s Romanesco broccoli from Sunseed Farm in Ann Arbor, Michigan; Eron’s winter veggies from Coon Rock Farm in Hillsborough, North Carolina; and Ann’s fan dance with lettuce from Irv & Shelly’s Fresh Picks in Chicago.

My favorite part of belonging to a CSA is the surprise that comes with opening a new box and seeing what’s new — it’s turned me into a more adventurous cook.

A few of my CSA-based creations: grapefruit-avocado salad, sesame broccoli with peanut sauce, Swiss chard frittata and an avocado-orange smoothie.

Soup is perfect for using up a bunch of perishables all at once!

Shaun’s vegetarian chili, and Will’s wife’s veggie-and-ham soup

Kristin made a pie with apples from her CSA last fall, and I made a sweet potato meringue pie with mine.

Hey, it doesn’t have to be 100% healthy all the time, right?

Michael, 37signals’ resident foodie and showoff, whips up amazing creations with his CSA goodies from Irv & Shelly — I’m considering moving to Chicago so he’ll feed me more often.

Michael’s masterpieces, clockwise from top left: red quinoa with roasted cauliflower, dried cranberries, and toasted pine nuts; spinach tomato scramble with Sunday bacon; parsnip and potato latkes; mushroom ginger soup with hato mugi; squash and chickpea Moroccan stew with hand-rolled couscous; and poached eggs with sautéed spinach, toasted pecans, and parmesan.

If you’re interested in CSAs in your area, check out localharvest.org. Bon appetit!